If we look for wisdom and insight from art there may be enough funding for the few artists left no matter how deep the cuts. Art need not appeal or be accessible to all the people or even any majority but it has to offer something to its audience, no matter how small, that they can't get on the street. Sadly the trend has been the opposite for decades now; from repro Brillo boxes to Turner prize Brit-junk- culminating in social comment that only preaches to the choir or elaborately expensive multi-media installations that, no matter how precious the insider theory, still appeal to the same taste for spectacle that drives Las Vegas and DisneyWorld.

The promise of art has been emptied of everything but rhetorical slogans and weasely excuses that it "provokes discussion" and "challenges conventional taste". So do riots and public hangings. When the best art can offer is immediate sensation or gratuitous "transgression" anyone can get better for cheaper on the late night news.